Steelthumbs

--Steelthumbs (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikinews

Getting started as a contributor How to write an article Pick something current? Use two independent sources? Read your sources before writing the story in your own words?. Do choose a unique title? before you start. Follow Wikinews' structure? for articles, answering as many of who what when where why and how? as you can; summarised in a short, two- or three-sentence opening paragraph. Once complete, your article must be three or more paragraphs. If you need help, you can add {{helpme}} to your talkpage, along with a question, or alternatively, just ask? Use this tab to enter your title and get a basic article template. [RECOMMENDED. Starts your article through the semi-automated {{develop}}—>{{review}}—>{{publish}} collaboration process.]

Welcome! Thank you for joining Wikinews; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. To help you get started we have an essay that will guide you through the process of writing your first full article. There are many other things you can do on the project, but its lifeblood is new, current, stories written neutrally. As you get more involved, you will need to look into key project policies and other discussions you can participate in; so, keep this message on this page and refer to the other links in it when you want to learn more, or have any problems. Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation   Used to contributing to Wikipedia? See here.

All Wikimedia projects have rules. Here are ours. Listed here are the official policies of the project, you may be referred to some of them if your early attempts at writing articles don't follow them. Don't let this discourage you, we all had to start somewhere. The rules and guides laid out here are intended to keep content to high standards and meet certain rules the Wikimedia Foundation applies to all projects. It may seem like a lot to read, but you do not have to go through it all in one sitting, or know them all before you can start contributing. Remember, you should enjoy contributing to the project. If you're really stuck come chat with the regulars. There's usually someone in chat who will be happy to help, but they may not respond instantly.

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Places to go, people to meet Wiki projects work because a sense of community forms around the project. Although writing news is far more individualistic than contributing to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, people often need minor help with things like spelling and copyediting. If a story isn't too old you might be able to expand it, or if it is disputed you may be able to find some more sources and rescue it before it is listed for deletion. There are always discussions going on about how the site could be improved, and your input is of value. Check the links here to see where you can give input to the running of the Wikinews project.

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Write your first article for Wikinews! Use the following box to help you create your first article. Simply type in a title to your story and press "Create page". Then start typing text to your story into the new box that will come up. When you're done, press "save page". That's all there is to it! It is recommended you read the article guide before starting. Also make sure to check the list of recently created articles to see if your story hasn't already been reported upon.

-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 20:42, 7 January 2017 (UTC) {{helpme}}

Question? --Pi zero (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi. What do you need help with? Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Steelthumbs. The most usual way to reply is to edit the section where the thing you're replying to is, or the whole page if it's not in a section (as in this case); write your reply on a separate line below what you're replying to, with enough colons, : or :: or ::: etc., at the start of the line to indent it a little more than what you're replying to; and at the end of your reply, put --~~~~ which automatically expands to a signature saying who you are and when you wrote the reply. --Pi zero (talk) 15:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, so like this? I'm going to try and contribute to articles about Ireland or my county, or board games I'm into. Being a Wikipedia writer already looks like fun, especially with so many people and places to help me --Steelthumbs (talk) 16:12, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

That is the way to do it, yes.

Regarding editing Wikipedia:

• Wikipedia and Wikinews are sister projects. That is, they are both part of the wikimedia sisterhood, operated under the aegis of the Wikimedia Foundation, but they work somewhat differently. They have some basic things in common; not just the software platform, but also some basic philosophical values — and they disagree on some philosophy, and do different tasks using different methods. They share a commitment to the idea that ordinary people on the internet should have a voice in information-providing. Wikipedia produces encyclopedia articles, which can be under development forever; anything anyone does to them is instantly "published", on the assumption that if a mistake is made, over time someone will spot the error and it will be fixed. Wikinews produces news articles, which are snapshots in time; news articles aren't under development indefinitely, they have to be gotten out while they're still news and they can't be changed long after publication (that would be like revising history); and by definition news is vetted before publication, it's not news if there isn't a philosophical commitment to getting it right the first time.
• Editing Wikipedia — and editing Wikinews — can be fun, yes. They are somewhat different experiences. I'm not sure how to explain the difference simply. Both projects have great people on them, and sometimes there can be friction between the people on a project; on Wikipedia there are a lot of people, whereas Wikinews is much smaller, and so the kinds of friction between people are different. Both projects can be technically challenging, I think, but the technical challenges are different, and with Wikinews a lot of the technical challenge is in an initial learning curve after which things get much easier.

--Pi zero (talk) 17:36, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Btw: there's a compact overview of what we do at Wikinews at WN:PILLARS. There's a tutorial on writing a first article at WN:WRITE. I also once tried to create an "article wizard", which imho ended up as a pretty good description of how to write an article but I wasn't really satisfied with it because the wiki software didn't allow it to be as interactive as I wanted it to be; that's at WN:Article wizard. (I'm now trying to fix that limitation of the software, but it's a long-term goal.) --Pi zero (talk) 17:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Gah, I completely forgot this was WN and not WP, sorry. I get the notifications for these messages in Wikipedia. I'll try to write about some local news that might interest people on here when I hear about it, and thanks for all the info! --Steelthumbs (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)